“You have no idea.” She slipped the glossy black heels from her feet, then reached for his hand, tugging him gently. “Come on. I’ll show you my new place. It’s dilapidated, dirty, and definitely disreputable, but it’s home. For now.”
Inside her room, the noxious fumes nearly singed his nostrils. Sex. Drugs. Depraved acts that should be illegal. And that wasn’t even mentioning the mice feces and cockroach dung. He breathed through his mouth, trying to block the stench.
Lathan stood in the middle of the room. No way could he sit on that ratty bedspread and have those smells stuck to his clothes. She sat on the edge of the mattress. He dragged the wooden chair from the corner and positioned it across from her.
“I know it’s gross.” The spoiled dairy scent of her embarrassment accompanied a sad smile. “You probably had better things to do than just sit there all evening, but I appreciate it. If I’d missed work today, Ernie would’ve fired me.”
“He wouldn’t fire you. He’s got a thing for you.”
She seemed surprised. “Why would you say that?”
“It’s in the way he looks at you.” Did she really not see it? “The way he shot hate bullets in my direction all night.”
“That’s just Ernie’s normal face. He always looks like he wants to commit murder.”
“Why don’t you get a better job?” Even as the words left his mouth, he knew that was exactly the wrong thing to say.
Burning cinnamon filled the air. “Do you seriously think that I’d be working there if any other place in Sundew would hire me?”
Any words he could say were going to land him on dangerous ground. “Give me a moment.” He left her sitting on the bed, went into the bathroom, got a faded but semi-clean washrag, soaped it up, and returned to the room with it and a towel. He might look weird still wearing gloves, but no damned way was he taking them off in this place.
He yanked the chair up close to her, sat down, then lifted her feet to balance across his legs, and washed the stench from the pavement and the carpet off her. Starting with her left foot, he massaged the red indentation cutting into her skin. “I hate to see you work so hard. I hate to see what it does to you.”
“That wasn’t exactly an apology, but you’re forgiven.” She closed her eyes, her head lolling to the side. “As long as you don’t stop.”
“Tell me what happened that you ended up at Sweet Buns.” He stared at her, waiting for her to answer, but she didn’t speak. He shouldn’t have asked. Not when he couldn’t give her any answers about himself.
“I don’t have a lot of work experience.” She didn’t say anything for a minute. Slowly she began shaking her head—not an act of denial, but one of resignation. “You might as well know the truth. Do you know what a kitten is?”
A kitten? Did he read that right? The word kitten didn’t really fit in the conversation they were having. He hated asking people to repeat themselves, but that was the only way to understand. “Did you say kitten?”
“Yeah. Kitten. You know what a kitten is?” she repeated.
It seemed like some sort of trick question, but he couldn’t find the trick. “A baby cat?” he asked hesitantly.
She smiled, the scarred side of her mouth tilting up while the other side angled down a bit, making her look oddly sad. “No, not like a baby cat. Kitten as in a young woman who is taken care of by a much older man.”
Ooohhh. The implications of what she was about to say forced him back in his seat. But he didn’t let go of her foot. Nope. He held on and kept the massage going, as much for him as for her. Touching her—even through his gloves—grounded him.
“When I hit eighteen, I was desperate to get out of the house. Away from Junior. Did you know he’s my stepbrother?”
Lathan managed to make his head bob up and down on his shoulders. He wasn’t sure he could’ve spoken if he’d needed to.
“I didn’t have a job or money or friends—those things were all forbidden to me. But I needed out of there. I don’t even remember how I heard about kittens. I just joined this kitten site and started chatting with some guys. I found a guy here in town—someone I knew of, someone who was rich and powerful in the community. I knew Junior would never mess with me if I was with him. We set up a meeting, and we…well…we hit it off, I guess. I became his kitten.” She looked up at the stained ceiling tiles. “He took care of me. Got me a place to live, a car, spending money. In exchange, I’d be his eye candy at conventions, provide a haven from his work, go on dates with him, and you know…whatever he wanted.”
Sex. She meant sex. The tangy scent of pine laced with burning cinnamon—jealousy and anger—practically seared his nostrils. He wanted to mutilate and murder this older man who’d taken advantage of a vulnerable girl.
“Basically, I was a whore.”
All his bad feelings evaporated. He couldn’t hear the self-loathing in those words, but he could see it on her face. See that she thought less of herself because she’d lived through desperate times that called for desperate measures.
“Honey, no.” He tore off a glove and settled his bare hand against the side of her face. Her skin was cool and soothed him. Did she feel as comforted by mere touch as he did? “Don’t ever say that.”
She looked him in the eye, and he could tell she was determining whether to believe him or not.
“Were you safe from Junior with this guy?”
“Yeah. Junior and my stepdad wouldn’t have dared to mess with me.”
“Then it was worth it. Right?”
Her gaze never left his. “I guess. It just makes me feel—I don’t know—not good about myself when I think about it. Back to your question about how I ended up working at Sweet Buns. When things ended, I had nothing of my own. Everything was…”
Lathan couldn’t read her last word—the guy’s name. Probably good he didn’t know it anyway. He might be tempted—if he thought too deeply about it—to seek him out and… Yeah. That wouldn’t end well. He slipped his glove back on and started in on her feet again.